There is a conflict between TBX.NLM and the iManager 2.7.2 install code. If TBX.NLM is loaded at the moment SP8 is installed or when installling iManager 2.7.2 later, then and abend will occur. The abend.log file will indicate the abend occurring in SH.NLM. The workaround is to simply make sure TBX.NLM is not loaded when you install SP8 or when you install iManager 2.7.2 on an existing server.

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There is a conflict between TOOLBOX.NLM, TBX.NLM and the iManager 2.7.2 install code. If TOOLBOX.NLM or TBX.NLM are loaded at the moment SP8 is installed or when installling iManager 2.7.2 later, then and abend will occur. The abend.log file will indicate the abend occurring in SH.NLM. The workaround is to simply make sure that neither TOOLBOX.NLM nor TBX.NLM are loaded when you install SP8 or when you install iManager 2.7.2 on an existing server.

=Common questions=

=Common questions=

Revision as of 19:05, 17 March 2009

This is a brief guide for installing this particular service pack. As time moves on, additional post-SP patches will be added to this document. The information here is gleaned from Novell-provided information, and the collective wisdom of the Support Forums. Feel free to edit this page if you find errors or if you have additional information to provide. However if you have questions or comments, please post them on the discussion page.

NW65SP8 was released on 3 December 2008 as part of OES2SP1. The download includes the overlay CDs and DVD for new installations as well as a ZIP file for updating existing servers.

Note: While this article talks about applying SP8 to existing servers, the patches and known issues sections do also apply to new servers installed with the SP8 overlay CDs or DVD.

Warning: To update existing servers, you should not use the overlay CDs or DVD, but only the standalone version NW65SP8.zip. Novell does not officially support upgrading existing servers using the SP8 overlay CDs or DVD.

Downloading SP8

If you want to install new servers using the overlay CDs that include SP8, either use the 2 CD images NW65OSSP8.iso and NW65PRODSP8.iso or the DVD image NW65SP8_OVL_DVD.iso available from the same URL.

Expand the Service Pack

Just like previous SPs, NW65SP8 is being distributed as a ZIP file called NW65SP8.ZIP. This is very convenient as you can now extract it on any platform that has a tool to unzip files. For instance, you can copy NW65SP8.ZIP to a remote server and then run UNZIP.NLM from the server console to unzip it. It is recommended to unzip the support pack to the root of one of the server's volumes - it does not have to be SYS. All the support pack files except for the readme will then be in a subdirectory called NW65SP8. Be aware that the support pack is about 1GB is size. So make sure the volume to which you unpack it has enough free space.

Verify SERVER.EXE is present

Some Antivirus software is configured to consider any .EXE file to be potential spyware and will not allow it to be written to a directory called STARTUP. McAfee VirusScan is well known for this. Verify that the file is present where it should be, under nw65sp8\STARTUP\SERVER.EXE. With some unzip utilities, the symptom of the problem is that you get asked for a password to unzip the file. However the zip file is not password protected.

Disable Transactions on NSS volumes

Note: This recommendation was true for SP6. I don't know if the NSS code in SP8 changed to handle the TTS format change more gracefully. Just to be safe, turn off TTS and you are sure to not have any problems.

Warning: Not all volumes have the transactions tracking system enabled!! You should not have the transactions tracking system enabled on both traditional and NSS volumes at the same time!!Read Novell documentation on when and why the transactions tracking system should be enabled or disabled on a volume!! You should verify which volumes have the transactions tracking system enabled before using the disable command !!!.

In some cases, the server may abend at startup because of incompatibilities in the transaction tracking system between SP6 and earlier versions. This is documented in TID3463889. If you are not yet on SP6, to avoid this problem, you should disable the transaction tracking system prior to installing SP8 by using the console command:

NSS /NoTransaction=ALL

If you want to upgrade from SP6 or SP7, this problem should not affect you.

Make sure TBX.NLM is not loaded

If TBX.NLM is loaded during the SP8 install, then an abend may occur during the install of iMAnager 2.7.2. To avoid this abend, make sure you unload TBX.NLM before installing SP8.

Load NWCONFIG and apply the service pack

The method for installing a service pack through NWCONFIG is well documented in the README. Here are just some comments on the questions asked during the SP install

Backup files replaced by NetWare Support Pack?

If you reply "yes" to this question, a backup of all the files replaced by SP8 will be made. You can later back out SP8 if you did the backup. I would strongly recommend always selecting the backup option unless you really have too little space left on your SYS volume. You can always delete the BACKSP8 directory later if you see that you don't need the backup. If you apply SP8 several times, you should only use the backup option on the first SP8 install and disable it on later installs.

Warning: While the support pack may be claim the backup only takes 300MB, this size is generally exceeded by far. The biggest contributor to the backup size is iManager. One single instance of iManager can already be several hundred megabytes in size depending on the number of plugins installed and on the size of the log files. What makes the situation even worse is that whenever a support pack installs a newer version of iManager, the previous versions is not removed but just renamed and thus continues to take space both in the tomcat directory structure and in each subsequent BACKSPx directory. In practice, the backup size now commonly exceeds 1GB of disk size .

Do you want to Update the Storage/LAN/PSM/WAN drivers currently in use?

It is highly recommended that you always enable the option to update drivers. People are often reluctant to enable this option because they are not sure the drivers included with SP8 do really work with their hardware. This however leads to many people having subtle problems later on because of outdated drivers. While it sometimes happens that drivers included with SP8 are incompatible with the hardware being used, the failure is generally immediate and you can manually backrev the specific driver that failed. If you don't use the driver update option, you will also miss out the important updates on Novell drivers like IDEATA.HAM, IDECD.CDM and SCSIHD.CDM. Generally, you should not just allow SP8 to update your drivers, but you should also take advantage of the SP install to check your hardware vendor for updated drivers and firmware.

Do you want to install iManager plugins now?

An iManager without plugins is of little use. As such, you really need the plugins to work with iManager 2.7.2. However, the plugin installation part of the SP8 install is by far the longest part of the whole install. So if you have limited time to install SP8, then you might decide to install SP8 without the iManager plugins and install the plugins later on. In normal cases you should always select the option to install the plugins.

Reboot the server after copying files?

You should install SP8 when users are not working on your server and you should reboot after installing the SP. Enabling the reboot option will cause the server to reboot automatically after the SP install. Note however that open files can force you to confirm the reboot on the server console.

Login prompt

The main purpose of the login prompt is to extend the schema of your tree. That means the user you specify at the login prompt should not just have supervisor rights to this server, but it needs supervisor access to the root of the tree, at least for the first SP8 you install into your tree.

Reboot & Verify services

Reboot like you should and make sure things are working. If you had to uncomment things to get java unloaded, put them back here. If you've made any hand-edits to files such as httpd.conf, verify their state before putting the server back into production.

If you get any Public Symbol errors, the problem is almost certainly that Server.exe failed to upgrade; or it did not extract from the SP8 .zip file (see "Verify SERVER.EXE is present" section above), or it failed to overwrite the previous version on the server you are upgrading - this can happen if the previous server.exe has somehow acquired a newer file date than the one from SP8

Fix and reenable the transaction tracking system

Warning: Not all volumes have the transaction tracking system enabled!! Only enable the volumes that you disabled before installing SP8!!! You should not have the transaction tracking system enabled on both traditional and NSS volumes at the same time!! Read Novell documentation on when and why the transaction tracking system should be enabled or disabled on a volume!! .

To avoid potential problems with the transaction tracking system causing future abends as described in TID3463889, delete the file UXACTION.LOG from the root of every volume on your server where the file exists.
If you need transaction tracking on one of your volumes, you can enable it again using the following command:

NSS /Transaction=volumename

Post SP8 Patches

eDirectory update for eDirectory 8.7.3.10

The edir87310_ftf1.zip patch which has been released before NW65SP8 is not included with NW65SP8. If your server is running eDirectory 8.7.3.10 (and not eDirectory 8.8.4), then it is recommended that you install this patch. Also see the section eDirectory versions in SP8.

iSCSI 1.06.05 update

Initiator loses connection to Equallogic Target (2 Nics) when 1 Nic is unplugged or threshold is hit to enforce load balancing algorithm on the Target device. Problem was with the loadCount being incorrectly incremented during async_logout_phase and was not reconnecting properly. Bug 450683

Fixed an Abend: Attempt to release an unacquired spinlock. Bug 461694

ScrSaver v6.01.14 update

The scrsaver.zip patch has been released. This is mostly an enhancement rather than a patch, to provide security when eDirectory authentication is not available.

Post SP8 known issues

eDirectory versions in SP8

If you install SP8 on an existing server, the eDirectory updates that get installed will depend on what eDirectory version you had before installing SP8.

if your server has an eDirectory version lower than 8.7.3.10 installed, then it will be updated to eDirectory 8.7.3.10b (the same version as found in edir87310b.zip). Note that the "b" revision is not visible. Also note that the patch edir87310_ftf1.zip is not included and you should install this patch.

I found, that edir87310_ftf1.zip down dates MASV.NLM to version 1.50.00, SP8 contains MASV.NLM version 2.00.01, SP 8 also contains a newer dated DSLOADER.NLM but same version 10554.44.00. (WH)

if your server has eDirectory 8.7.3.10 installed, then eDirectory is not touched. This is a problem if you updated to 8.7.3.10 using the broken edir87310.zip or edir87310a.zip patches. In this case, you should urgently apply the edir87310b.zip and edir87310_ftf1.zip updates.

if your server has eDirectory 8.8.x installed, then it will be updated to eDirectory 8.8.4.

If you install a new server from the NW65SP8 overlay CDs or DVD, then you will get eDirectory 8.8.4.

Tape drive problems

The driver NWTAPE.CDM included with SP8 has the issue in that if it is loaded and then unloaded, it leaves the storage driver in an undefined state and all further tape driver you try to load will fail. This will cause a problem with third party backup programs for many people. In fact, given that the server generally automatically loads NWTAPE.CDM when it recognizes a tape drive, people will often include the command UNLOAD NWTAPE in their AUTOEXEC.NCF before loading the backup software. With the new NWTAPE.CDM, this will cause the backup software to fail. The solution to the problem is to avoid loading NWTAPE.CDM in first place. For this, you need to edit STARTUP.NCF, remove any line that loads NWTAPE.CDM and add the following line:

Apache2 unload/restart issue

Because the rotlogs.nlm module for Apache2 was compiled with the wrong options, unloading or restarting Apache2 produces a "press key to continue" message and only continues if you actually press a key. The issue is documented here in TID7001892. Additional workarounds can be found in the following Coolsolutions article.

iPrint and RMANSRVR Abend issue

There appears to be a problem with the RMANSRVR in SP8 v3.06.04 dated 23rd October 2008 that is causing abends to occur. The current work around is to extract the RMANSRVR.NLM from the iprntnw65sp7b, postSP7 patch for iPrint; v3.06.03 dated 9th June 2008.

Abend during iManager 2.7.2 install

There is a conflict between TOOLBOX.NLM, TBX.NLM and the iManager 2.7.2 install code. If TOOLBOX.NLM or TBX.NLM are loaded at the moment SP8 is installed or when installling iManager 2.7.2 later, then and abend will occur. The abend.log file will indicate the abend occurring in SH.NLM. The workaround is to simply make sure that neither TOOLBOX.NLM nor TBX.NLM are loaded when you install SP8 or when you install iManager 2.7.2 on an existing server.

Common questions

Here are a collection of questions related to SP8 that have been asked in the forums, and the current answers to them. See The Netware Forum Directory

Q

Can I apply TCP681K.zip on top of SP8?

The TCP681K patch appears to be newer than the TCPIP files from SP8. Can I apply this patch on top of SP8?

{{{Signature}}}

Answer: The question is still be investigated.
The TCP681K patch is based on the v6.81 TCPIP code base from SP7. SP8 contains a newer v6.82x code base. As such, the TCP681K patch has never been intended to be used on SP8 servers. It is however possible that TCP681K.zip contains fixes not included in the tcpip.nm version included with SP8. This section will be updated as soon as the situation is clarified.